North with Franklin: The Lost Journals of James Fitzjames

Summary

Somewhere on a barren Arctic shore in the summer of 1849, knowing he was dying, a British Naval officer wrapped his journal in sailcloth and buried it beneath a lonely pile of frost-shattered stones. He was one of the last of the 129 doomed men of Sir John Franklin's lost Arctic expedition. His name was James Fitzjames and for four years he had carefully recorded the expedition's achievements, hopes and, as things began to go horribly wrong, the descent into madness and eventual death of his closest friends. This is his journal.

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North with Franklin - John Wilson

journey.

PROLOGUE

On April 25, 1848, three men huddled in a wind-blown tent in one of the coldest, most remote, places on earth. They were composing a message. One had just trekked four miles to get the paper; another dictated; the third laboriously thawed the ink and wrote the words. Outside, as an incessant wind blew mournfully between piles of clothing and supplies, 102 British officers, sailors and marines made final preparations for a desperate escape. Many were sick. Not one would live to see his home again.

The officer who wrote the note was James Fitzjames, perhaps the most promising young Naval officer of his generation. In addition to the bleak missive of 1848, Fitzjames kept a journal in which he wrote entertainingly and at length. Unfortunately, only the first few thousand words of this remarkable document survive.

North with Franklin has been a labour of love. From the moment I read the existing fragment of Fitzjames’ journal, I knew I would have to tell the rest of his story. I felt a close kinship to the man. He had an almost modern sense of wonder at the world about him and I would have liked little more than to meet him over a glass of port and discuss his world and mine. So I read his letters and the letters of his friends. I read the books he would have read and marveled at the inventions that changed his world. I researched his culture and immersed myself in his life and times. I read the stories the Inuit told Charles Francis Hall and others of their encounters with Franklin's men alive and dead. James Fitzjames became my friend.

The writing of this journal, more than a century and a half after the real author dipped his quill pen into ink, has been more than recreation, it has been a rediscovery, the uncovering of a voice long silent and a glimpse into the mind of a man who lived and died in a world very different from our own.

Bringing Fitzjames back to life has been my primary purpose but, implicit in this task was an attempt to explain the mysterious fate of Franklin and his men. To this end I have used what little direct evidence we have of the expedition’s fate, the more rational speculation put forward over the years, the published Inuit testimony and my imagination. These diverse threads I have attempted to weave into a coherent tapestry and I live in hope that one day someone will stumble upon the brittle, stained pages of Fitzjames’ actual journal, wrapped in sailcloth and cached beneath a lonely pile of stones on some bleak Arctic shore. Then I will know how close my ghosts have come to the real ones.

CHAPTER ONE

Summer, 1845

Her Majesty’s Ship Erebus, off the coast of Greenland.

Sunday, July 13, 1845, 11 p.m.—My Dearest Elizabeth. We are begun. All the endless preparation is done. The supplies are loaded and we have said a last farewell to civilisation, or what passes for it in this barren land. We weighed anchor on the tide last night, beneath the most beautiful clear sky you could imagine. The sea was as flat as a glass and peppered with a most remarkable assortment of icebergs which shone on the horizon like a twelfth cake with each occasional gleam of the midnight sun. This really is the most extraordinary of lands we have entered.

Around eight the wind picked up and has moved us quite briskly northwards all day. There was some discussion before we sailed as to whether we should head straight across Baffin’s Bay to Lancaster Sound or sail north and around the top of the ice. A Dane from Lievely who had married an Esquimaux came over to visit us at Disco and indicated that this was the one of the mildest seasons and earliest summers ever known in these lands. We are presented with a very open year for ice, but the pack—as a solid mass of sea ice is called—can still be a formidable obstacle in the centre of the bay.

It was decided that we should sail north along the coast in the direction of Cape York and yet be prepared to take advantage of any favourable winds or intelligence from the whalers we shall meet. It is generally agreed that we shall be in time if we reach Lancaster Sound by the first of August or thereabouts. Everyone is very sanguine about our prospects and I wrote to William that I would shake hands with him on February 22nd next.

Yet, I cannot stop myself from wishing for some small hindrance to keep us in this land for a winter—we have ample supplies for three years and our scientific work would benefit greatly from the extra time. I do not think one can get to know this place without experiencing it when the sun is both never down and eternally set. So if I am not back with you as my promise to William, do not fret for I shall be enjoying myself in complete security and comfort.

My dear sister—for thus I think of you just as I think of William as my brother—and wife of him I love best; I leave you knowing you as a woman and no longer a mere description in one of William’s letters. I feel the parting from you full as much as from William—and of course the children. I am often to be found taking much pleasure in the remembrance of my little friends. My time on land between the Clio’s return and this leaving was so brief, and busy, that I scarce had time to do one quarter of the things I had promised myself. My memories are too much filled with details of supplies and crew lists and the like. However, foremost in my mind is the short time I had to become acquainted with Elisabeth and Robert. Their visit to the Erebus at Greenhithe breathed a fresh draught of life into the dull life of a sailor at dock with their eternal questions concerning every knot and billhook they espied. In particular, Elisabeth’s opinion that the rigging made the ship look as if it were held in the web of a spider and her scream of fright when she stumbled over a coil of rope which she mistook for a snake shall make me eternally look upon the tools of my trade with fresh eyes.

Perhaps you will think I am foolish to care for little children—but so it is. I was as much pleased with little Elisabeth’s expressions of regard—exaggerated though they were—as I should have been with the more studied and carefully phrased, but perhaps less genuine expressions, of grown up people.

I hope to celebrate Elisabeth’s birthday (this one or the next) in Behring’s Strait or close by it. Little Robert, the son and heir, will be three or four by then and I promise I shall find time to devote to my Godfatherly duties.

After all your anxiety that I should keep a journal for your especial perusal and here I am already rambling on and wearing out the porcupine quill. I have never been one to waste the hours lying abed more than necessary and can always find some dark corner of the night in which to put down my thoughts. Indeed, I have managed to keep up my official journal which I will submit to the Admiralty upon our return, but it is dry piece of work talking in the same official voice of all our doings from the weather to a man being flogged. Not fit reading for a fair lady, to be sure, so I shall use it only to refresh my overfilled memory. These writings will be mere notes to please you, of such things as may strike me, either in the form of a letter, or in any other form that might at the time suit my fancy. So I do not feel obliged to fill a page every day. To keep my thoughts fresh I shall not read over what I have written, so you must excuse all inaccuracies.

And so having made a beginning and my excuses I will to bed. I wind up this and call it a letter just for the sake of adding that I am as ever your affectionate friend and almost brother, James Fitzjames.

July 14—A fine day and we make steady progress. The air hereabouts has the clarity of desert air, but with a cold sharpness I have not experienced before. It is most refreshing to both nose and eye, imparting a hard-clarity to the views which I have never perceived through the soft, moisture-laden air of England.

The coast of Greenland is in sight—a rugged place of black rock cut by white furrows and ravines of snow and some of the most magnificent glaciers the equal of any in Switzerland. The whole is canopied with a mass of clouds and mist. In bold relief, at the foot of this black mass, the most fantastically formed and perfectly white bergs shine out. Grand scenery, but desolate beyond expression.

Our time at Disco was longer than we had hoped, the off-loading of the transport being a more arduous undertaking than expected—but we used the time to advantage. We commenced by beating up to the Whalefish Islands, which are in the bay formed at the south end of Disco and the mainland. There we planned to clear the transport. By some mistake, Reid, our Ice-Master, fancied we were off-course, and led us away up to the end of the bay, thirty miles to the mouth of Waigat Channel. It is a not an auspicious beginning for our expert on the ice conditions of this land, but no harm was done. In fact, the wind favoured us right around the bay which was full of the most glorious icebergs packed close along the shore. But for the loss of a morning, it would have been the most delightful sail. I went on board the Terror that evening, and found Crozier aware of the mistake. He fancied we had given up the idea of going to the Whalefish Islands. It was around midnight that we finally ran into a bay. Of course, the sun was up all this time, it being almost as bright at midnight as at noon.

We were met by five of the local Esquimaux, in the smallest possible canoes, all in a row. The two going ahead kept near the ship and piloted her into a safe place among the rocks, where we moored in a channel just four times the ship’s breadth, and perfectly landlocked. Feeling brave the following day, I resolved to try one of the Esquimaux craft. They are very small and necessitate the removal of trousers to enter them. I paddled about happily for some time but at last over I went and remained there, upside down in a most undignified position until rescued.

One of the party gave a quite remarkable display of skill in repeatedly severing a weighted string hung over the stern from a distance of several boat lengths with nothing more than a type of small throwing dart which they use to bring down birds in flight.

The Esquimaux have the most unusual aspect, being short and stocky, like folk used to a life of hard labour. They have very flat and wide faces. Some resemble a type of face I came across in China to such a degree that it made me wonder on the origins of these odd people. Many came aboard and traded for whatever they could. They were particularly taken with any metal which they could fashion into spear points. In exchange they offered many items made of sealskin. Our crew almost universally smoke clay pipes and many obtained tobacco pouches from the natives who, although they do not much use tobacco themselves, make the pouches for trade with passing vessels. It seems the European influence on these lands extends to establishing new trade customs.

Crozier went quite overboard and kitted himself out with a complete set of native clothing. It consists of a shapeless jacket and pair of leggings, cunningly sewn from the complete skins of several local deer and still bearing the distinct aroma of the wilds. He also procured a pair of skin boots, or mukluks as they are called. I cannot imagine what he will do with this outfit or how strange he will look in the Strand dressed—and smelling—like an Esquimaux. When I joked him about it, he replied with a serious explanation on the principles by which air is trapped in layers beneath the clothing and, warmed by the body beneath, serves to protect the wearer from the extremes of the local climate. He even went so far as to explain to me that the Esquimaux have been living in these lands, in all probability, since before Caesar conquered Britain and, for all their savage appearance, must have learned something of adapting to its vagaries. He really can be quite humourless at times. None-the-less, I could not deny the natives a superior skill to mine in the handling of their small craft.

I used this time to take magnetic readings with an early version of the ‘Fox,’ which we find quite cumbersome and awkward to use. Still, we must make what we can of it as there is no scientific supplier in these parts. I was frequently very wet and cold at this work; but plunging into cold water, when I got on board, made me quite warm. I could not help thinking of the Frenchman who, after a long account of the misery of the rain and fogs of England, rued—‘Pour quitter ce triste sol je m’embarque à Liverpool.’

The land of Disco was bold, black, and topped with snow. The seas were covered with bits of ice, which rushed through the channel as they broke away from the icebergs with a noise like thunder. Every man was allowed on shore and they ran about for a sort of holiday, getting eider duck’s eggs, &c; we collected some very curious mosses and plants, also shells. Le Vesconte and I spent a day on a small island surveying. It was very satisfactory to me that he took to surveying, as I said he would. Sir John was much pleased with him.

I also spent a day on land with Fairholme measuring angles of the magnetic lines of force of our dear old Earth. It is important work, but tedious in the extreme as it involves sitting for long hours in a little square wooden house recording minute variations in the movements of a tiny, suspended needle. To add to our woes, we were continually bitten by very large mosquitoes and I fancy we each lost some pounds of flesh. I have saved you one of the beasts.

Both the Erebus and the Terror are very heavily laden, the Terror less so since she left some supplies in Disco. We have taken on the extra tons of coal. The Erebus is, without doubt, the sturdiest ship I have ever been on. She is not overly large, being 370 tons to the Terror’s 340. Both ships are ‘Bomb’ vessels, built solidly at first to carry the mortar cannons that were used to bombard Napoleon’s coastal fortifications.

Oddly the Terror is the very same vessel I rescued south of Lisbon when I was a lowly fifteen-year-old first class on the old Pyramus in 1828. We found her 70 miles south of the detestable hole we were blockading. She lay on a bed of sand surrounded by rocks with the surf beating over her tremendously—her crew living in tents and six other merchantmen wrecked nearby. She was refloated and towed back to England, very leaky and with the pumps working continuously. I thought then she would see no more service in His Majesty’s Navy yet here she is on this new adventure.

Both ships were much strengthened for the ice they encountered while with James Ross in the Antarctic, and they have been further strengthened with oak beams and iron hull sheathing for this endeavour.

We draw some seventeen feet fully laden which a few feel might handicap the work we have ahead of us. Thomas Blanky, the Ice-Master on Terror, was with John Ross from 1829 to 33 and saw as much as any man of the kind of waters we must navigate. He has expressed the opinion privately—but what can remain private in the confines of a ship at sea—that the waters are shoaly and treacherous and that we would have done well to bring a small yacht with us to take out if the going got tight. I think he worries overly for our aim is to sail through the open spaces near Banks Land and, when possible keep well clear of narrow passages which may well be ice-clogged traps.

Both ships are very full with three years’ provisions and coals for the engine. The engine on Erebus takes up space most inconveniently. It is an entire locomotive (which but a few months ago was running on the Greenwich line) with only the wheels removed and set by crane in our aft hold. It weighs 15 tons and its bulk makes passage below deck quite a trial at times. Many of the crew are not to be convinced of its import, especially as it can only push us along at a poor three or four knots. Still, I am certain we shall have reason to be thankful for such foresight when we have need of a push through the ice and the wind is uncertain or contrary.

Some men of vision, Sir John Ross among them, even talk of a day when flotillas of ships powered by steam boiler alone will conclude all recourse to sail. It is a stirring idea especially given Ross’s unfortunate experiences when he had to dismantle and dump the unworkable engines from his Victory at Felix Harbour in 1829. Yet perhaps he is right for certainly the steamer Rattler was of great assistance to us on our way to the Orkneys. Perhaps the day will come when we see the great navies and merchant fleets of the world steaming around the globe without a care for the movements of wind and tide! For all that they may change our world, the engines are, as Irving on the Terror says of their trials, prone to make the most dreadful puffings and screamings and will undoubtedly astound the Esquimaux not a little.

Meanwhile, our deck is covered with coal piled chest high and casks of food and liquor, and there is but a narrow pathway fore and aft which must look to the untrained eye as if it winds around like fallen knitting wool, yet which in fact defines the most convenient routes that the crew must take as they go about their sometimes complex tasks.

We sit very low and the two ships handle rather like logs in the water. You will please picture to yourself our having a smooth passage between the icebergs for we had enough rolling and pitching on our way across the Atlantic to last us all the voyage. The old Terror pitched so much she appeared as if tossed around by some playful undersea serpent—but no doubt we appear to do likewise from her decks. We can only hope that we do not meet with an unseasonable gale before we make Lancaster Sound and the opening of the passage.

I have no fear but that we shall complete the passage before we have time enough for scientific work and adventure, and if we do not, what wrong can befall us? Since Parry revived our English claim to these northern lands in 1818, all the expeditions, even those that met with misfortune, have lost but a handful of men, and most of those through accident or some pre-existing medical condition. Surgeon Stanley had to invalid one man back to the Whalefish Islands and Peddie did the same for two in addition to both the Terror’s Armourer and Sailmaker who Crozier classified as perfectly useless either at their trade or anything else. So we are now 129 hardy souls in two of the sturdiest ships ever to set sail. We have the best of supplies and the keenest hearts that could ever be wanted. How can we not succeed?

But here I am rambling on about hearts of oak when all you want to hear is gossip of my shipmates and stirring tales of adventure. All I can pass on in this regard is that our Purser, Osmer, beat me soundly at chess this evening. I pray the voyage is long enough so that I may improve to such sufficient degree that I might take a game or two from him before we reach home.

July 16—I was beginning to write last night, but the ship was tumbling about to such an extent that I went to bed but had to turn out again immediately and get the top-sails reefed, as it blew very hard in squalls. The ship pitched about as much as I ever witnessed. Reid is a most extraordinary rustic and prognosticates endlessly on all manner of topics, nautical and otherwise. After the experience at Disco I am disinclined to give much weight to his sayings, but they are undoubtedly quaint and sometimes amusing. Today he was saying that he does not like to see the wind seeking a corner to blow into, and followed this with a rough comment on the impracticality of kilt wearing in windy climates.

The weather moderated this morning, and all day we have had little wind and tolerably smooth sea. This allowed us to get the proper ‘crow’s-nest’ up. The construction is a hooped canvas cylinder attached at the main-top-gallant-masthead (if you know where that is). According to Reid, who will have the peculiar privilege of being perched up there to search out channels through the ice, this particular crow’s nest is a very expensive one.

Blanky on the Terror proclaims this to be a very open season, much like the one he experienced when he sailed these waters in 1829 with old Captain John Ross. Of course the weather cannot be taken as a good luck omen since Ross and his crew spent four years trapped in the ice and were given up for dead before they were rescued. But you need have no fears for us. I am told by Osmer that we could easily make supplies last a farther one or even two years taking no account of what fresh meat we might obtain with musket and ball.

Osmer is a delightful fellow. He was with Beechey in the Blossom when they went to Behring’s Strait to look out for Franklin. At the time Sir John was surveying the north coast of America in 1821, and was within 150 miles of Beechey. Osmer was also at Petro Paulowski in Kamschatka, where I hope to go, and served since on the lakes of Canada. It is said that if the Purser is plump then the crew eat well. If there is any truth in this saying then we will surely benefit for Osmer is almost as broad as he is tall and his skin exudes a most ruddy glow. I was at first inclined to think him a stupid old man, because he has chins, takes snuff, and has an extraordinary nose; but he is as merry-hearted as any young man, full of quaint dry sayings, always good humoured, always laughing, never a bore, takes his ‘pinch after dinner,’ plays a ‘rubber,’ and beats me at chess—and, he is a gentleman.

By the time you have read a quarter of this poor document you will have a fit picture of all my messmates. We have the following whom I have or shall from time to time give you descriptions:—First Lieutenant, Gore; Second, Le Vesconte; Third, Fairholme; Purser, Osmer; Surgeon, Stanley; Assistant-Surgeon, Goodsir; Ice-Master (so called), Reid; Mates, Sargent, Des Voeux, Couch; Second Master, Collins; Commander, of himself you know better; and over us all, Sir John Franklin, the hero of so many past adventures in the lonely and unexplored regions of the world. But for now I must to bed. Good night sister.

July 17—A wonderful clear evening. Osmer came from on deck dancing with an imaginary skipping-rope. I said to him, What a happy fellow you are, always in good humour. His answer was, Well, sir, if I am not happy here, I don’t know where else I could be.

He has an extraordinary facility to remember and recount the details of our provisions, and we take comfort in having him recite what will keep us from want in the months to come.

Why, sirs, he says, we need fear nothing. We have sixty-one tons of flour; sixteen tons of biscuits; fourteen tons each of salt beef and pork; ten and one-half tons of sugar; nine tons of concentrated soup; four tons of chocolate; three tons of tobacco; a ton each of tea, soap and candles; 8,000 cans of preserved meat, soup and vegetables; 3,684 gallons of liquor; 900 gallons of lemon juice; 170 gallons of cranberries; and 200 pounds of pepper to season it all.

Of course all this is supplemented by the personal supplies that all of the officers have brought aboard and we look forward with some anticipation to the treats which will, on occasion, grace our mess table. For myself, these personal supplies are modest, comprising some ox tongue, crystallised fruit, Abernethy’s crackers, and of course the preserved goose you and William so kindly furnished.

Our victualling schedule for the men will be one pound biscuit or flour; two and one-half ounces sugar; one-quarter ounce tea; one ounce chocolate; and one ounce lemon juice per day; one-half pound preserved meat every second day and three-quarters pound each of salt beef and pork, and one pint of soup twice a week. Surgeon Stanley is of the opinion that the preserved meat should be fed preferentially to the sick, and I tend to agree. We also carried ten live oxen, but they were slaughtered at Disco with the intention of freezing the meat but the unseasonably warm weather has meant that we have had to eat it as quickly as possible. At least the beasts provided us with a few meals of fresh meat to remember in the months of salt beef to come. As important as the food for the body, we carry food for the mind in our library of 1,700 books. They will make these Arctic nights pass with alacrity.

It is now well past the witching hour and with thoughts of giant hams and Milton dancing in my brain, I must extinguish the candle.

July 18—Passed within hailing of a whaler today. She confirmed the openness of the ice and stated that we should have no difficulty in the crossing if we should only catch a fair wind. For the moment it still leads us north toward Cape York.

I wish I could convey to you a just idea of the immense stock of good feeling, good humour, and real kindliness of heart which fills our small mess. We are very happy, and our opinion of Sir John improves very much as we come to know more of him. He is anything but nervous or fidgety; in fact, I should say remarkable for energetic decisions in sudden emergencies; but I should think he might be easily persuaded where he has not already formed a strong opinion.

As you know, the rumours abounded in Admiralty circles in England that the first choice to command this expedition was James Ross, but that he turned it down because of the exhaustion he felt after four years battling the icy southern ocean on his magnificent circumnavigation of the South Polar Lands. He also harboured a quite natural desire to share time with his young wife and family. Sir John had just returned from his unhappy experiences in Van Diemen’s Land and was, I believe, anxious to undertake some action whereby he might restore his reputation, so unjustly slandered by the colonials, and escape the worries of political circumstance. He was the most senior Arctic officer available having led two extraordinary expeditions to explore the coast of America. Sir John commanded the Trent on Buchan’s attempt to reach the Pole in 1818. The only hindrance against him was his age of fifty-eight which is considered excessive by some, including a few of the junior officers on this expedition. But any grumblings have vanished. Sir John is a remarkable man and, if anyone is to lead us through this adventure, it must surely be he.

I dine with Sir John each evening the weather permits and he also enjoys the nightly company of two others from the mess. This evening I was present with Gore and Le Vesconte, and we discussed our orders.

We must make all haste, Sir John began, through Lancaster Sound and Barrow Strait to Cape Walker. From there we shall set course to the southwest and sail through the uncharted waters between Banks and Victoria Lands. I hope to emerge on the coast of the Americas near Point Turnagain and from there make Behring’s Strait in good order.

You do not hold then, Gore asked, with the theory that an as yet undiscovered land fills that part of the globe?

I know not, Sir John smiled. There may be land there as you say, but it will not be of one piece—we shall find a way around it. Simpson and Dease traversed the coast almost to the foot of Prince Regent Inlet and I am confident there must be a way through to the coast, possibly several.

What of the northern route across the Polar Ocean? interjected Le Vesconte. He is of the school, led by Barrow, which believes in an open ocean lying to the far north and that if only the rim of drifting pack ice around it is penetrated, a short, clear route to the Orient will be found. Like many neophytes, Le Vesconte has boundless enthusiasm for his beliefs and expounds upon them at the least provocation.

If, said Sir John with heavy emphasis, after our best attempts, we find the southern route to be blocked by ice or land, then we shall turn north and try to find a way east by Wellington Channel. Our orders are very clear and we shall follow them to the best of our ability, regardless of what unsupported theories are currently in vogue in some quarters of the Admiralty.

Poor Le Vesconte looked crushed, but said nothing more. I felt sympathy for him, but he was well aware, as are we all, how Sir John feels about Barrow’s theories. Le Vesconte was asking for a rebuff in bringing up the topic.

The fair wind continues and we are making some seven knots, good for these vessels. The sea is tolerably smooth, though we do roll a little; but this ship has the happy facility of being very steady below, though from on deck, she appears to be plunging and rolling greatly. Already we are becoming fond of the old Erebus. She is what is commonly known in the service as a ‘happy ship,’ not least the result of the cheerful community we are developing aboard her. I sometimes miss the community on land, not least the company of yourself, William and the little ones, but to belong to a band of fellows engaged as we are in one laudable purpose and confined in a small area with but the vastness of the natural world surrounding, is a situation which cannot be reproduced elsewhere. My new world fosters such joy that I cannot help but be satisfied with the life I have chosen.

I sometimes think that in any case I am not fitted for what is commonly called society—by this I mean tea and bread and butter society—and that I am much better in a position of the sort I now occupy than dallying about in the humbugging world. This is all to say that your roving brother-in-spirit is content with his lot despite only being with you in thought, which I most assuredly am. Good night.

July 19—The life below these cold waters is quite extraordinarily plentiful and is providing continual delight for Goodsir who, though an Æsculapian by trade and lately curator of the Edinburgh College of Surgeons, is only truly happy in the presence of some unusual or hitherto unknown denizen of the natural world. He is a splendidly entertaining fellow and has the useful facility of being able to impart his enthusiasm to any idle hands he comes across and to make them uncomplainingly aid him in his explorations. He is what I believe is called ‘canny.’ His upper lip projects beyond his lower and his lower begins his chin thus producing a gradation, but a whisker comes down beyond the chin so you imagine there is more of the chin than meets the eye. He is long and straight (like a can of pump water) and walks upright—on his toes, with his hands tucked up in his jacket pockets. He is perfectly good humoured, very well informed on general points, in natural history learned, appears to be about twenty-eight years of age, laughs delightfully, cannot be in a passion, is enthusiastic about all ’ologies, draws the insides of microscopic animals with an imaginary-pointed pencil, catches phenomena in a bucket, looks at the thermometer and every other meter, is a pleasant companion—in all an acquisition to the mess. So much for the appearance of Mister Goodsir.

This evening he held us all in thrall with tales of his attic domicile in Lothian Street, Edinburgh which he termed ‘The Barracks.’ It was rented, he said, "for the princely sum of £17 per annum. As I recall, I shared it with my two brothers, two fellow doctors, a monkey, tortoise, dog, cat, eagle, king crab, chameleon, and various assorted guinea pigs, birds, fish and amphibians, not all of whom helped with the rental, and some of whom were a considerable surprise to the other residents of the house.

"When one of our non-human guests passed on as nature intended, we would, in the name of science, dissect and study it. Naturally an assortment of skins could always be found hanging to dry in all manner of corners.

"It was the ideal setting for the free expression of opinions in the numerous and sometimes heated debates we undertook on scientific, political and moral matters. On occasion, we drew outsiders into our discussions. Once even that famous man of science Louis Agassiz. The discussion that